Federal Constitution Adopted by Pennsylvania December 12, 1787

The establishment of a free nation resulted through the close of the war of independence, yet it also brought anxious solicitude to every patriot’s mind, and this state of apprehension increased with each succeeding year.

The State debts operated severely on all classes, to meet the payment of which was impossible. This and kindred troubles, financial and governmental, impressed the people with the gloomy conviction that the great work of independence was only half done. It was felt that above all things a definite and organic form of government—reflecting the will of the people—should be fixed upon, to give energy to national power and success to individual and public enterprise.

So portentous a crisis as this formed another epoch for the display of the intellectual and political attainments of American statesmen, and the ordeal was one through which they passed with the highest honor and with ever-enduring fame at home and abroad.

A change was now to be wrought. The same hall which had resounded with words of patriotic defiance that shook the throne of King George III and proclaimed to an astonished world the Declaration of Independence, that same hall in which the Congress had continued to sit during the greater part of that war, the State House in Philadelphia, was soon to witness the assembling of such a body of men as in point of intellectual talent, personal integrity and lofty purpose had perhaps never before been brought together.

On the proposition of uniting the water of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers deputies from five States met at Annapolis in September, 1786. Their powers were too limited, and nothing was accomplished. This meeting was not, however, without its beneficial effect, for there were 872assembled men who deeply felt the depressed and distracted condition of the country, and put their sentiments into action.

They drew up a report and an address to all the States strongly representing the inefficiency of the present Federal Government, and earnestly urging them to send delegates to meet in Philadelphia in May, 1787. Congress responded to this proceeding in February by adopting resolutions recommending the proposed measure.

On the day appointed for the meeting, May 14, 1787, only a small number of delegates had arrived in Philadelphia. The deliberations did not commence, therefore, until May 25, when there were present twenty-nine members representing nine States. Others soon arrived, until there were fifty-five to respond to their names. Never, perhaps, had any body of men combined for so great a purpose, to form a constitution which was to rule a great people for many generations.

Washington was the outstanding figure, and then the idol of the whole people. And there was Rufus King, Gerry and Strong, of Massachusetts; Langdon, of New Hampshire; Ellsworth and Sherman, of Connecticut; Hamilton, of New York; Livingston and Dickinson, of New Jersey; Randolph, Wythe and Madison, of Virginia; Martin, of Maryland; Davies, of North Carolina; Rutledge and Pickens, of South Carolina.

From our own great Commonwealth were Franklin, one of the profoundest philosophers in the world, and, though nearly fourscore years of age, was able to grasp and throw light upon the complex problems relating to the science of government; Robert Morris, the great financier, of whom it has been truthfully said, that “Americans owed, and still owe, as much acknowledgment to the financial operations of Robert Morris, as to the negotiations of Benjamin Franklin, or even to the arms of George Washington.” Gouverneur Morris conspicuous for his accomplishments in learning, his fluent conversation, and sterling abilities in debate; George Clymer, distinguished among Pennsylvanians as one of the first to raise a defiant voice against the aribitrary acts of the mother country; Thomas Mifflin, ardent almost beyond discretion, in zeal for his country’s rights and liberties; James Wilson, the most distinguished lawyer in that body, and Jared Ingersoll, another of the great lawyers of that day.

When the convention proceeded to organize, Robert Morris nominated General Washington to preside, and he was unanimously elected. Standing rules were adopted, one of which was that nothing spoken during the deliberations be printed or otherwise published or made known in any manner without special permission.

The delegates to the convention had been appointed merely with a view to the revision or improvement of the old Articles of Confederation, which still held the States together as a Nation.

Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, in opening the great discussion, laid 873bare the defects of the Articles of Confederation, and then submitted a series of resolutions embodying the substance of a plan of government, similar to that suggested in letters of Washington, Madison and Jefferson a few months previous.

The plan in question proposed the formation of a general government, constituted as follows: The national legislature to consist of two branches, the members of the first branch to be elected by the people of the several States, and the members of the second branch to be elected by the first branch; a national chief executive to be chosen by the national legislature; and a national judiciary. Provision also was made for the admission of new states into the Union.

Mr. Randolph’s plan had many supporters, but other projects were brought forward, which occasioned angry debates for some days, and but for the timely and healing wisdom of Dr. Franklin, the mentor of the Constitution, might have broken up the body.

The debate closed September 17, and the result of the convention’s labors was the formation of a constitution establishing a national government on the principles that the affairs of the people of the United States were thenceforth to be administered not by a confederacy or mere league of friendship between the Sovereign States, but by a government, distributed into three great departments—legislative, judicial and executive.

The final draft of the Constitution was signed by all members present except Randolph and Mason, of Virginia and Gerry, of Massachusetts. Washington signed first, and as he stood, pen in hand, said: “Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again be offered to cancel another in peace—the next will be drawn in blood.” The other members solemnly signed the historic document.

The convention, however, was not clothed with legislative power, nor was the Continental Congress, competent to accept or reject it. It was referred to the several States to be the law of the Nation when ratified by nine of the States.

It was not until the summer of 1788 that ratification of the nine States was obtained, beginning with Delaware, December 7, 1787, closely followed by Pennsylvania, five days later, December 12, 1787, some by large and some by very small majorities.

In New York the opposition resulted in serious riots. Of the thirteen original states, Rhode Island was the last to accept the Constitution, which she did in May, 1790.

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